Romeo and Juliet
In class we had to watch and analyse two versions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. These variations of the play were based on the same script and they both used Shakespearian prose to speak in; this made the film much more authentic and made it easier to relate from the play to the movie. The difference between the two movies was that one was more modern and the other was fairly dated. Subsequently, one had been modified to suit the younger generation whereas the other was more or less untarnished and old fashioned, it looked so much more archaic than the modern parody.
In my opinion, although the modern version was more suited to younger people, I feel that it was much too much of a travesty of the storyline and that most of the acting was over exaggerated; for instance the cousins of Romeo being punks I thought was just too much off the storyline as in the actual play, they seem respectable too. On the other hand, the Zephirelli version of Romeo and Juliet is much sweeter and romantic, slower paced, I think that the fact that they used the original prose fits better with this version of the play then the modern version; because the more recent version is so modern, the use of Shakespearian prose in it seems odd and sounds out of place. In contrast, I think that the acting in The Luhrmann variation was better than that of the Zephirelli, Olivia Hussey in the latter was much too childish and didn’t get across the desperation and depression that she should have been feeling at the death of Tybalt; her crying was too fake. Also, the nurse’s acting was appalling, her crying was forcefully forged and her laughter sounded like a witch cackling. She seemed to not act in Juliet’s best interests and seemed to turn into the villain at the end which I am not sure whether that was part of the plot or not. Conversely, I believe that Leonard Whiting’s acting in the older version of the movie is sweeter and more romantic. He seems and looks so much more innocent, and less cocky than Leonardo DiCaprio. Alternately, I believe that Claire Danes’ performance in Romeo and Juliet was commendable, she was much stronger than Olivia Hussey and she seemed to be much more decisive and firm which is perfect Juliet qualities, being as firm as Romeo is fickle.
